


Shark

by heliantheae



Series: Blue [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cheese Danishes, F/M, Humor, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Jaws Theme Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 17:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15417564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliantheae/pseuds/heliantheae
Summary: In which there's no use crying over spilled coffee or stolen cheese danishes, and Bucky Barnes comes home.





	Shark

Steve Rogers is exhausting to be around. Sam had thought it was the fact that the government was basically collapsing and they were fugitives for a while and also almost died a lot that had worn him out, but no. Things had settled down. Hydra had gone to ground, and until someone with a much better grasp on how the modern intelligence community worked than either Sam or Steve possess comes up with a target for them, they’re stuck in New York. Sam is enjoying himself. He has a job as a counselor here in the city now, and also access to even better restaurants than before. It’s definitely Steve that’s making him tired and not his lifestyle.

He tells Clint this hypothesis. Natasha had introduced them several months before, on the basis that they were both bird-themed superheroes and would probably get along, and now they meet for coffee and eat a truly indecent number of the world’s best cheese danishes at a little bakery in Brooklyn. Clint says, “Thank God, I thought it was just me. Fuck yeah, dude. Rogers is exhausting,” he tries to do finger guns, but the fact that one of his arms is in a sling kind of ruins it.

“We don’t even do anything,” Sam sighs. “All he does is workout and do volunteer work and sulk.”

“Captain America doesn’t sulk, he’s patriotically morose,” Clint corrects, and promptly knocks over his coffee when he tries to grab it without setting his current danish down. “Aww, coffee. No.”

“It’s definitely sulking,” Sam argues, moving his phone to safety from the rapidly expanding coffee puddle and stealing napkins from a neighboring table. 

“I get it, man,” says Clint. “The guy’s like a shark, you know? It’s like he thinks he’ll drown if he stops moving.”

“I’ve never understood that,” Sam says, momentarily distracted. “How do sharks sleep if they have to keep moving?”

“Do they sleep?” Clint wants to know, and hums the _Jaws_ theme song while mopping up the rest of the spilled coffee.

“I think I lost brain cells just listening to that conversation,” Natasha says, presumably having walked to their table, but also maybe having teleported since Sam hadn’t seen her coming.

“Holy fucking shit,” Clint swears, and spills what remains of his coffee. “Jesus Christ, Nat. I’m putting a bell on you.”

She smiles serenely and sits down. Sam puts a hand over his heart. “Not that it’s not great to see you,” he says, “But you could give a guy a little warning.”

“It’s not my fault you’re not very observant,” she tells him critically, and steals a cheese danish.

“Aren’t you lactose intolerant?” Sam wants to know.

She frowns at him. “I mean, technically, but—mind your own goddamn business, Wilson.”

He holds up his hands in defeat.

Clint, spraying crumbs, says, “Sam agrees with me about Rogers.”

“You think he and Barnes were a thing too?” Natasha asks, interested.

“What?” says Sam. “No. I mean,” he considers it. “That would actually make a lot of sense.”

“About him being exhausting to be around,” Clint clarifies. “Personally I think he steals people’s vitality and that’s how he stays so fit.”

Natasha gives a disagreeable hum. “What’s next, bathing in the blood of virgins on the full moon?”

“I think he actually just works out all the time,” Sam offers.

“He’s stealing your youth,” Clint tells him seriously, eyes wide with sincerity.

Natasha rolls her eyes. “He’s just intense.”

“So you believe in the Baba Yaga but not that Steve is siphoning our souls away a little at a time?” Clint demands, mouth quirking up a little as he struggles to keep a straight face.

“I’ve met the Baba Yaga,” she tells him primly. “I have yet to see evidence that Steve is up to anything questionable.”

“You’re both ridiculous,” Sam informs them. “Dibs on the last danish.”

Natasha, maintaining eye contact, picks the last danish up and licks it.

“I like that you think that’s going to stop us,” Clint says. 

“It’s going to stop me,” Sam mutters.

“I’ll arm wrestle you for it,” Natasha tells Clint.

She wins, smugly eating the danish while Clint signs rude things at her.

\----------

“Honey, I’m home,” Sam calls sarcastically when he gets back to he and Steve’s apartment. 

“Hey, Sam,” Steve says, continuing to do one-armed push-ups in their living room. “How’s Clint?”

“He’s doing good,” Sam replies. “Natasha showed up too, so she might stop over later.”

This gives Steve pause. “Do you think she has anything?”

Personally, Sam kind of hopes she hadn’t shown up just to dump a Hydra file on them and disappear again, but he doesn't say that. “Maybe,” he says noncommittally. “She was too busy stealing my food to say much.”

Steve switches arms and goes back to doing push-ups. “That sounds like Natasha.”

Sam leaves him to it, and goes to sit in his office and frown at paperwork like an actual adult for a while. He makes it through three pages of forms and half a game of solitaire before there’s a knock on the door. He listens to Steve answer, say, “Hey, Natasha,” and then there’s a sound like a dumbbell being dropped and a lot of swearing and crashing.

He’s not quite at the point where he’s willing to say ‘uh oh’ out loud, but if he were this would be one of those times. Instead, he grabs his handgun from where he has it stashed and pokes his head out the door. Natasha sees him and raises her eyebrows. She’s not armed—well, she’s definitely armed, but she doesn’t have any of her weapons out—so Sam tucks his gun away and goes to see what the commotion is about.

In the middle of the much-abused living room, a man has Steve in a headlock. A familiar man. Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. Sam gives Natasha a look, and she shrugs at him. “I don’t know what you were expecting.”

She has a point. Sam has come to learn that Natasha accomplishes everything she sets her mind to. “Ugh,” says Sam. “Is it too early for drinks?”

“It’s never too early for drinks,” she informs him. “I’ll call Clint and see if Sharon wants to come too.

This last bit is said with an eyebrow waggle that makes her look ridiculous. “Don’t you dare,” Sam tells her.

“She’s not that intimidating when you get to know her,” Natasha says. “And she and Steve are obviously not going to work out.”

They both look to where the headlock has turned into a hug. “Oh, what the hell,” Sam decides.


End file.
